I haven’t known where my left pinkie is in about ten years.
I know it is there, but as to what it is up to I usually have no idea.
For most people it isn’t hard to keep track of a finger, especially when it belongs to your own hand, but it is different for me.
It all began one summer night in my driveway when I was about ten years old. One minute I was throwing a kickball up against the wall with my best friend and the next minute I found myself trying to catch the ball and slipping in a puddle. Then I saw a glass window moving toward my face, or really vice versa, and began replaying my whole life. Seeing my life flash before my eyes didn’t last very long on account of the fact that I was only ten and hadn’t lived that much life at that point and that my brain had finally kicked in and told my arms to do their job and protect my face from certain disfigurement. So I continued falling, heard a loud crash of glass and found myself half way through the window in my garage certain that I was about to get into a lot of trouble for breaking this window.
Turns out that my body had just gone into shock because my arm had actually been completely sliced open.
A huge freak out, a quick ambulance ride and a total of around 96 stitches later and I was a fourth grader with a scar from his elbow to his wrist and nerve damage in half my hand leaving my poor little pinkie without any feeling at all.
[Insert profound transitional sentence that relates a childhood experience to some hopefully deep spiritual truth in only few words here]
The sad thing is, I know a whole lot of people that are just like my left pinkie.
Somewhere down the line somebody or something hurt them and they have lived through so much pain that they have chosen to not feel anything. Not feeling anything is easier than feeling hurt.
We all know these pinkie people, we might even be one without ever knowing it. Here are some things I have noticed about pinkie people.
Hurt people stay hurt. Within a couple years following my accident I broke that same pinkie twice. Now it is shaped kind of like a lightning bolt, which is pretty weird. Some might say it was coincidence or just bad luck but there is something to be said about the mental disregard for things we can’t feel. When we can’t feel something, we are less likely to protect it. The places in our heart that we block out from the world and try to forget about are the ones that will be the easiest to attack. Choosing to not feel anything, then is really just a choice to consistently feel more pain.
The scar on my arm is a normal part of my life and I have gotten used to half my hand feeling like it is asleep all the time. The scar is still there though, and it still freaks people out when they see it for the first time, because no scar has ever been erased by just forgetting about it.
When our life turns upside down we usually only consider one of two options. We either chose to end our life by our own means or we choose to do the best we can to just move on. Surprisingly, neither of these are the right answer because both cause insurmountable amounts of pain to other people and thus continue the cycle of decay in Creation. “Moving on” seems legitimate but it requires a whole lot of effort to bury and forget whatever has happened to us. We spend all of our power trying to hide and keep hidden the pain that we don’t know how to deal with that we neglect the people in our lives and are rendered incapable of what we were created to do. Hurt people then, not only stay hurt, but create hurt in other people.
I think we forget sometimes what it really means to be a part of the body of Christ. We forget that we are connected to each other as we connect ourselves to God. Your hurt is not your own and deciding to live with hurt not only will kill you, but the body you are a part of. My brain can’t just count my pinkie out of the picture and do everything it could do before it was hurt. A Body by it’s very nature has to do everything it can to heal itself because it feels the pain of its’ members as its’ own pain.
I don’t think people truly realize the pain they cause in the people that love them when they choose to live a life of numbness and indifference. Every person who has ever hurt us has done so because they first gave up on themselves. Who are we to think that nobody is affected when we chose to make a decision that will lead to death because we don’t want to feel anything anymore?
Something else I have noticed about pinkie people is that they always know when a storm is coming. Since the day when I went through that window, I don’t think one thunderstorm has ever gone by that I didn’t already know was coming. I thought it only happened in movies and old people but every time a storm is about to come my left arm turns into a human barometer and starts convulsing letting my whole body know something is about to go down. Though somewhat convenient to have a built in meteorologist, it doesn’t feel too good.
When times look like they are about to get rough and God is about to move (because usually they are the same thing), hurt people are the first to abandon ship. They know that they are barely hanging on as it is and will not be able to stand anything else coming against them so they do what they think is best and take themselves out of the game leaving the Body hurt and confused and usually feeling personally betrayed. The Body doesn’t understand the deep hurt of its’ member and the member doesn’t understand the inseparable bond it has to the Body.
What is the answer then? What are we to do with a pinkie that feels nothing? What do we do if we are a pinkie that feels nothing?
The Body was created to love, we have to know that above else. It is our job and responsibility to bear each other’s burdens.
When I was teaching myself how to play guitar, I tried my best to avoid playing chords that required all five fingers. I would do the best I could to figure out a way to rearrange the chords so I didn’t have to use my pinkie and it worked for awhile but eventually I got to the point where I could not learn anymore if I was going to continue ignoring that little finger. I had to decide if I wanted to just give up and put the guitar down forever or find some way to just make it happen. I discovered that if I used the fingers I could feel, I could guide the one I didn’t where it needed to be, since I would have no way of knowing what string my pinkie was on otherwise. Now I use what feeling I have to let me know what that which I can’t feel is doing.
That is the duty of Christians, and I think the Church needs to see a rise in people taking on the mantle of Big Brother or Sister. We need to attach ourselves to those hurting and wounded and do everything we can to restore them back to their purpose by doing it with them. We can’t make anybody do anything, but we can leave them with no excuse for not being what they were created to be. One thing that is hard for me to grasp, though, is that I can’t fix everybody. I could do everything in my power and with the greatest wisdom possible for someone but when the rubber meets the road everyone still has to make their own decisions and choose the life they want and even God won’t make them do something they don’t want to do.
I am realizing that the Body of Christ is more like Frankenstein’s monster than anything else. Each member has a story and a history of pain and death but we have been brought together and sewn up so that we can experience real life. We have to understand where we each come from and what we each have been through and we have to be willing to admit that we can’t do it on our own, which is where the pinkie people come in.
If you have been deeply wounded and scarred then quit trying to forget about your past. Quit trying to just move on like nothing ever happened. Simply, do nothing. Stop everything and let God completely heal you. Your scars may never fade, but neither will His. Jesus came down to this earth for the purpose of taking away your pain, don’t mock His crucifixion by trying to hold onto it.
Choose to feel again. Choose to care.
Imagine what life would be like completely healed, and then let it happen. Let God transform you inside and out make you new.
The Body of Christ needs you back.
